Claim: Cumberland officials didn't do enough to stop it

Apr. 24, 2013

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Amount in damages Cumberland County Prosecutor’s Office Detective Lynn Wehling says she may seek in a lawsuit against her employer.

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BRIDGETON — Legal papers filed by a detective at the Cumberland County Prosecutor’s Office describe a work environment in which she was sexually harassed while enduring an “unrelenting barrage” of vulgar, anti-gay and racist comments by her supervisor.

Detective Lynn Wehling, who has worked in various divisions of the Prosecutor’s Office since 2004, has filed a tort notice signaling she intends to sue her employer for neglecting to reprimand Sgt. George Chopek. Wehling claims Chopek repeatedly verbally abused her over the years because of her gender and sexual orientation.

Wehling, who earns an annual salary of $84,292, seeks $2.5 million in damages.

At the heart of the complaint are allegations of Chopek’s crude, insulting, sexist and homophobic remarks and taunts toward Wehling and the hostile work environment they created. In addition, she claims Chopek spoke derogatorily about her colleagues, including racist and sexually degrading remarks about Cumberland County Prosecutor Jennifer Webb-McRae.

Chopek, who lives next door to Wehling in Millville, also invaded the detective’s privacy by peering into her windows and watching her in compromising or intimate settings, the legal papers allege.

Wehling filed an eight-page “notice of claim for damages,” or tort notice, with the county on Feb. 25. The Daily Journal obtained a copy of the notice through the state Open Public Records Act.

A tort notice is not a lawsuit, but it serves as official notice that one may be filed. New Jersey law requires a plaintiff to file a tort notice first before filing a lawsuit seeking damages from a governmental agency. The notice usually states a rough basis of a legal action and some alleged facts.

Webb-McRae said she couldn’t comment on the substance of the tort notice, but added the matter is under investigation.

Wehling declined to comment. Chopek said he had not heard about the tort notice and declined to comment. County Solicitor Ted Baker did not return calls seeking comment.

Wehling began her employment with the Prosecutor’s Office in February 2004 and was assigned to the Narcotics Unit of the Organized Crime Bureau, which is housed in Rosenhayn and separate from the prosecutor’s other bureaus in Bridgeton.

In November 2009, Chopek became deputy commander of the Narcotics Unit, making him Wehling’s supervisor, and the harassment began, according to the tort notice.

Chopek’s repeated offensive, sexual and misogynistic remarks, including sexist statements about Wehling in front of her co-workers, diminished the detective’s reputation over the years, she claims in the tort notice.

“Sgt. Chopek openly called (Wehling) ‘gay,’ and referred to her as ‘a guy,’ ‘sir,’ and ‘dude’ in public and in front of other members of the narcotics unit,” the notice claims. It also alleges Chopek trained his young daughter to refer to Wehling as “Uncle Lynn.”

The notice describes provocative questions from Chopek directed at Wehling, including one in which she was asked if she shaved her genitals and another in which she was asked if she had sex with female co-workers.

In the legal papers, Wehling also alleges Chopek caressed her hair and told her he wanted to ejaculate on her. “Does that make me gay?” he allegedly then asked.

On another occasion, which Wehling claims severely damaged her reputation, she and Chopek were transporting three prisoners from Millville to Cumberland County Jail when one inmate asked Wehling if she was married. Wehling alleges in the tort claim that Chopek turned around to the prisoners and made a crude remark about how much sex Wehling has with other women.

The prisoners then laughed at the detective, causing humiliation and reducing her authority over them, according to the tort notice.

Wehling’s tort notice also describes racist remarks it alleges Chopek made about the detective’s co-workers.

For example, Wehling’s notice claims Chopek attempted to discredit Webb-McRae before she was sworn in as prosecutor, pulling up her Facebook page and pointing to her online friends — many of whom were black — and accusing her of being “dirty” for being friends with “these people.” Webb-McRae is the first black person and woman to named county prosecutor.

Wehling alleges in her claim that Chopek also made several comments about the size of Webb-McRae’s breasts and asked Wehling if she wanted to have sex with the prosecutor.

One example of his alleged racism, according to the tort claim, occurred after Chopek got into an argument with a lieutenant. Chopek entered the unit’s back room where several detectives sat and screamed, “I hope that when (the lieutenant’s) daughter goes to college, she gets raped by a (n-word.)”

The tort notice says Wehling repeatedly reported Chopek’s wrongdoing to Lt. Rosemary Parks, whom Wehling said often witnessed the misconduct. On one occasion, Wehling stated, she attempted to report Chopek to Chief William T. Johnson, seeking to have Chopek transferred out of the Organized Crime Bureau.

Wehling claims no proper corrective action was ever taken by Johnson and says Chopek was never fully disciplined or reprimanded for his conduct.

In an attempt to again distance herself from Chopek, Wehling claims, she accepted a transfer in 2011 from the Narcotics Unit to the Intel and Gangs Unit so that Chopek no longer would be her supervisor. In the Intel and Gangs unit, Wehling was supervised by Sgt. Steve O’Neill.

However, due to the two units being housed together, Wehling was still forced to have regular contact with Chopek, according to the tort notice. He continued to make increasingly troublesome remarks about her private life, Wehling claims in the legal papers.

In the notice, Wehling claims Chopek informed her in July 2011 that he had spied on her engaging in sexual intercourse in her home by looking through her bedroom window and also watched her get out of a shower naked. The discussion occurred after Chopek had called Wehling into his office to discuss a complaint made about another detective, the tort notice says.

During the discussion, Chopek asked Wehling if she was having sex with a specific female co-worker, according to the legal papers. “I see her at your house,” Chopek allegedly said. “Come on, you can tell me — I want to (have sex with) her, too.” Chopek went on to tell her that he thought about the two of them together as he masturbated in the shower, the tort notice alleges.

The tort notice describes what Wehling says happened next: She conveyed the details of the incident to O’Neill, who later held a meeting with Chopek. Chopek reportedly told O’Neill he would offer a letter of transfer by the end of the shift. For the remainder of the shift, O’Neill physically had to protect Wehling from Chopek, who was pacing back and forth angrily throughout his office.

But Chopek never followed through with filing a transfer letter, and the two remained housed in the same small unit for more than a month, where the abuse continued and took on a more retaliatory tone, Wehling claims in the tort notice.

Wehling said she attempted several times to renew her concerns to O’Neill, but finally decided to submit a request for her own transfer out of the Organized Crime Unit so she could get away from Chopek.

In a meeting later that day, Wehling says in the legal papers, Parks and O’Neill delivered a report of her claims to the county prosecutor’s office, after which she said she was called into Internal Affairs to discuss her complaints. But, Wehling said in the tort notice, she declined to give a formal statement because she already had given a full report to Parks and O’Neill and feared Chopek would retaliate further.

Four days later, according to the tort notice, Webb-McRae intervened, informing Wehling that Chopek would be removed from the Organized Crime Bureau and would supervise the Juvenile Unit in Bridgeton. Although Chopek was transferred, Wehling alleges, he was never formally disciplined or reprimanded.

Chopek has worked for the county as an investigator since 1997 and is paid $97,592 annually.

Wehling’s tort notice adds that, although Chopek is no longer her supervisor, she continues to have forced interactions with him as part of her job responsibilities, including mandatory in-house training sessions. In one recent session, Wehling said in the legal papers, Chopek showed up at a session he wasn’t scheduled to attend in an effort to intimidate her. Wehling said she complained about the incident to her supervisor, whose only response was that she could leave the session if she wanted, according to the papers.

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